In NLP Visual is one part of the Representational System. In NLP Visual breaks down into two general parts; Internal and External. An example of Internal Visual is remembering how many chairs there are in your living room, remembering your favourite movie. There are legions more.

Some Examples

Most important is to have some examples of Visual External. Watching television, looking at the person next to you, searching for your car-keys. So every visual that comes from the inside is called Visual Internal and every visual that comes from the outside, we call in NLP Visual External. In other words, NLP Visual is relating to sight or the sense of sight externally initiated.

Now, a lot of articles associate the Visual part of the Representational System with Eye Accessing Cues, which in the basis is true, but there is more to tell about. Read the following words as an example for what we are about to tell you: see, take a peek, view, clear, imagine, short sighted, reveal, bright, sight for sore eyes, tunnel vision, bird’s eye view, picture, look, focused, paint a picture, clear, foggy, naked eye, dawn, an eyeful, illuminate and hazy. As you already notice, all of these are examples of the Visual part of the Representational System.

An Excercise

As a start to listen to the language an other person outputs. What is he or she talking about? Is this person talking in Visual mode? And if yes, check if their eyes move accordingly. See what happens when you start talking back in Kinesthetic mode, to build up Rapport. And even more interesting, what happens if you answer in another part of the Representational System? Most of all your job is to investigate. As one of our teachers used to say: “Be that nutty professor”. See what works for you and see what does not.

Another exercise is to make lists of Visual words. First, just to exercise your recognition system for the words that come to you. And when you have a hundred or maybe more, start to classify them in Internal and External experiences. Remember that as a result the quicker you are with this tool, the more it becomes useful in your daily life!